Norfolk’s Youth Offending Team (NYOT) wanted to find out how aware local people are about work on reparation and so decided to ask you as members of the Citizens’ Panel.

The findings from the latest survey reveal that 77% of you are aware that young people on community court orders carry out reparation work and 47% are interested in finding out more about it.

The NYOT consists of representatives from the Police, Probation Service, Children’s Services, Connexions, Health, Substance Misuse services and directly employed workers such as Reparation Workers. NYOT’s main aim is to prevent children and young people (aged 8-18 years) from offending and to work with their victims to help repair some of the harm they have caused. Each young person is assessed to gauge what led to their offending, their risks and welfare needs. NYOT staff then develop and deliver an individual plan aimed at preventing further offending.

The Reparation Workers’ main role in NYOT is to supervise the unpaid work or ‘community payback’ activity the young people often perform as part of their community court order. The work activity is supervised on a one-to-one basis (or similar ratio) for anything from an hour to all day. The Reparation Worker will also set up the work activity in the first place. During the course of the work activity, the Reparation Worker enters into discussion to:

• Challenge a young person’s offending behaviour and attitudes

• Ensure the young person makes amends for his/her wrongdoing

• Raise the young person’s self-esteem, develop skills and gain work experience etc.

NYOT runs a wide range of reparation projects throughout the county in

co-operation with statutory bodies, local councils, voluntary and charitable organisations, all for the benefit of the community. However NYOT wants to extend the range of reparation activities available and so asked the members on the Panel what you felt young people should be doing to benefit the community.

Litter picking (78%) was the most popular choice of activity cited by Panel members, closely followed by working to improve public spaces (74%) and maintaining churchyards (62%).

The majority of residents (86%) also thought that young people should do reparation work that not only benefited the community but also helped them to develop their work skills.

The NYOT will use the findings from the Panel to further develop its reparation activities and to consolidate its relationship with the local community.